James and the Peregrines

James Aldred follows the fascinating lives of a pair of peregrines and the family they raise in his local disused quarry in this intimate audio diary.

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James Aldred will be familiar to many Radio 4 listeners as 'the tree climber'. As a tree canopy access expert, James spends much of his life travelling across the world and climbing up into tree canopies to film the wildlife there, but in his spare time when he's home, James loves to head through the woods behind his house and up to the disused quarry to watch the peregrines that have bred here. In 2015 he decided to keep an audio diary and follow the lives of these birds in his spare time. Historically Peregrines were prized for falconry and it's from here that we get the names falcon for the female bird and tiercel for the male. On a freezing cold day in early February, James set off for the quarry with his recorder and microphones for the first time, and watched the adult birds patrolling back and forth marking their territory, prior to courtship. Over the coming weeks, James returned to his ringside seat as often as he could to watch these magnificent birds and determine which ledge they would choose to nest on. He followed the birds from winter through spring and summer as they bred and raised their young, as you can hear in this intimate audio diary about one of the world's most iconic birds of prey. Producer Sarah Blunt.